Starting a Family
by HGranger89
Summary: ONE-SHOT: Hermione Granger-Snape burst into their shared chambers at Hogwarts at the end of a long day of teaching. "Severus. Bedroom now!" she commanded as she warded the entrance. Severus Snape looked up from the mountain of parchment he was grading on the kitchen table and groaned inwardly. 'When had sex become so transactional and unenjoyable' he thought to himself.


AN: Hi. This one-shot is intensely personal to me, and I just had to get it out on paper because all of my feelings were ready to burst out of me. I hope I get the happy ending I have envisioned for my OTP. To anyone else out there struggling with infertility and feelings of inadequacy or hopelessness. I understand. Thank you for reading.

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or its characters.

* * *

Hermione Granger-Snape burst into their shared chambers at Hogwarts at the end of a long day of teaching. "Severus. Bedroom now!" she commanded as she warded the entrance.

Severus Snape looked up from the mountain of parchment he was grading on the kitchen table and groaned inwardly. _'When had sex become so transactional and unenjoyable?' he thought to himself._ He pinched the bridge of his nose and reminded himself that this was for Hermione, the witch who had brought light and happiness to his life after forty-two years of misery and loneliness. She wanted a child, craved it with all of her being and he would do his best to make her wish a reality.

They had been trying to conceive for thirteen months now. Each month they would sit together on their bed and hold hands with bated breath while Hermione cast a fertility charm. When the golden glow did not appear, Hermione's heart would fracture just a little more.

It had been ten years since the defeat of the Dark Lord, Tom Riddle. During her eight months on the run, Hermione had suffered stress, malnutrition, and torture and ever since her menses had been irregular and infrequent. The healers at St. Mungo's could not tell Hermione what was wrong with her since wizards aren't known for being paragons of scientific advancement, so she had gone to see a muggle gynecologist. Her LH hormones are too high, preventing regular ovulation. He wasn't exactly sure what it all meant, but he knew chances of conceiving unassisted would be difficult.

Still, Hermione was not discouraged at first. She diligently managed her diet, exercised daily, took every vitamin recommended by the doctor and tracked every single cycle. She regularly peed on those bloody expensive muggle strips to tell her if she was ovulating or not and the four times she had, she dragged him into the bedroom not to resurface for three days (unless it was a school day of course).

And yet, nothing. Severus knew it was getting harder on her, despite the brave face she put on. Every time she held another one of her anointed godchildren from the fertile Ginevra Potter or when Molly Weasley commented on when they would start a family of their own, her smile got tighter and her eyes became more vacant. Merlin, three months ago she had begged him to switch his rounds with Filius. When he had said "I will not ask Filius Flitwick to switch rounds with me so that I can impregnate my wife," she had burst into tears and had been inconsolable for hours. He did not want to repeat that moment ever again.

Severus wanted to talk to her about other options, but she wasn't ready yet. He knew his beautiful, brilliant, hard-working, loving, compassionate, war-heroine of a wife would find it a personal failure if she could not conceive a child naturally, despite his words to the contrary. So, he stood up, smiled and strode into the bedroom ready to make love to his wife, and hopefully, this time, get her pregnant.

* * *

During her free period, Professor Granger-Snape slipped into the third-floor ladies down the corridor from her Transfiguration classroom. She cast a muffliato charm and from her robes pulled out a slim pink muggle test to determine if she was finally ovulating again.

When the three minutes were up, Hermione squealed and jumped up and down dancing. Finally, after 74 days (her diary did not lie after all), she was ovulating again. She just had to get through her fourth year Ravenclaw/Gryffindor class, and she would be done for the day. Severus was currently in his last Potions class of the day so they would have the entire evening.

After the excitement wore off, she took a deep breath and prayed to God, Merlin, Circe, Nimue, and Artemis. She was ready to be a mother, and she was tired of biology and the impacts of war standing in her way.

Most assumed Hermione Granger-Snape did not want to have a child. Her mother had never wanted children and often parroted her indifference to being a grandmother. Her aunts assumed she was always too cold, too bookish to crave the love of a mother her child. Even some of her friends, not her closest – but others, assumed that books, her research, and teaching at Hogwarts were more than enough. They also concluded that's why she'd married Severus, because he was nineteen years older, and none of them could ever imagine Severus Snape as a father.

Yes, Hermione loved to learn, and yes, she loved her job, but why could she not 'have it all?' She should not be forced into the world's narrow view of her. Severus, Ginny, and Harry knew the longing in her heart, the desire to be a mother, to grow heavy with a child, to love someone so unconditionally and to nurture. They alone also knew of her struggles.

She was a war-heroine, she completed her N.E.W.T.s seven months after the war and immediately enrolled in a university in France where she completed a double mastery in Transfiguration and Arithmancy in four years. The last six months of her degree had been an internship, which she chose to do at Hogwarts. She split her time shadowing Headmistress McGonagall and her former Arithmancy Professor, Septima Vector.

Unexpectedly, during those six months, Hermione had struck up a wonderful friendship with a much less surly, though still biting and sarcastic, Severus Snape. The spy had survived Nagini's attack when Hermione and Ron had made the decision to leave Harry to go to the Pensieve and apparated him to St. Mungo's, where they still had anti-venom from Arthur Weasley's attack two years previously.

On the night she accepted Minerva's job offer to take over as Transfiguration Mistress, Severus asked her on a date and kissed her. Six months after that, they had been married in a Christmas wedding at Hogwarts.

They'd now been married for five years, Hermione was comfortable in her role as professor and Head of Gryffindor House; Severus was still teaching potions and Head of Slytherin House, and had also taken on the position of Deputy Headmaster after the war, as should always have been after Albus was gone. They were happy and comfortable in their life. They traveled every summer, doing research, seeing muggle and wizarding communities around the world, spending time with their godchildren, but they were both ready for a new joy and a new challenge.

Hermione knew that Severus would be happy if their life remained as it was. He had never expected to live to forty, never planned to be a husband or a father, so he hadn't allowed himself to dream. But he had once confessed to her in the middle of the night that he wouldn't be opposed to a little girl with bushy black hair and a button nose who was a smart and fierce as a whip, and a son who he could teach potions and how to fly.

Hermione was so anxious to head to their chambers on the fourth floor (she'd insisted on living halfway between the dungeons and Gryffindor Tower when she and Severus moved in together) she let out her final class ten minutes early.

She hurriedly ran up the flight of stairs, by-passing a stunned-looking Neville Longbottom and hissed the password while bouncing on her feet. She ran into the room, warded the door, and called out to her husband "Severus. Bedroom now!" joyfully.

While this may not be passionate lovemaking, she still wanted to enjoy sex with her husband. She left the sconces in the room unlit and instead lit the candles in the corner of the room with her wand. She scurried into the bedroom and piled her curly mane of hair onto her head, just the way she knew Severus liked because he loved slowly un-doing it, pulling out each of the pins and fisting his hair in it while she straddled him. She even decided to put on his favorite knickers, a black pair of Brazilian panties that were high-waisted, but left the curve of her bottom exposed and perfectly framed. Sex could still be sexy, even if it were not in the heat of passion.

Severus walked into the bedroom and found his wife standing in front of the mirror, scrubbing her face clean with her back to him.

He immediately felt a stirring in his trousers. Hermione had piled her hair on top of her head like a crown until he pulled out each pin and it cascaded down her back like a waterfall, and she was wearing nothing, except those knickers.

He immediately took back his previous complaints. How could he ever complain about sex with this goddess who had inconceivably chosen to marry him five years ago? He would gladly stay locked in this room with her for the next three days.

* * *

 _Three weeks later_

Hermione lay on the bed, curled in a ball, tears streaming down her face. Another failure, another rejection. Her body was declaring her unworthy of motherhood once more.

Severus, unsure what to do, crawled behind his wife and pulled her close to him, wrapping his arms around her and cradling her, smoothing out her hair and letting her cry.

Hours later, after forcing peppermint tea and half a sandwich delivered by the house elves into her, he looked her in the eyes, kissed her mouth soundly and said "Hermione, love, it is not admitting failure to speak to your muggle physician. I think you should book an appointment."

* * *

 _Four months later_

Hermione had just finished her third cycle of fertility drugs, and she was miserable. She was exhausted and moody, and now she felt nauseous of all things. She just kept telling herself it would be worth it.

That morning, after throwing up the entire contents of her breakfast in her office, she quickly vanished the evidence and headed into her seventh-year class. She was halfway through explaining the theory behind Conjuration when she began to feel dizzy. She braced herself against the first row of desks and just before she blacked out she heard the Head Boy, a Slytherin named Henry Aitken, yell "Find Professor Snape and Madam Pomfrey, NOW!"

When Hermione woke up, she was groggy and could feel the bright lights of the hospital wing burning her retinas as she cracked them open. She turned her head to the side and saw her panicked husband clutching her hand as if his life depended on it.

"Severus," she croaked. His head shot up and stared at her as relief flooded his face. "You're hurting my hand love."

He immediately dropped it, stood up and kissed her. "Are you alright? Let me get Poppy. POPPY! She's awake."

The matron hurried over to the bed smiling. "Well, I am pleased to see you are awake after your little fall Hermione. You're a little anaemic, so I would recommend an iron supplement, and Severus can brew you something for the morning sickness no doubt and then you'll be fine."

"Morning sickness?!" Hermione and Severus both exclaimed.

"Why yes dear, you're about four weeks along!"

Hermione gazed up at Severus, eyes shining with tears. He cupped her face and kissed her soundly. He pulled back and looked at his beautiful wife, smiling radiantly for the first time in months. He couldn't help but laugh and smile, happiness bubbling up inside of him.


End file.
